DAVID PENBERTHY
ter and acknowledge that views do differ in the community. However, we do not support Maria Folau’s stance on this matter.”
It’s worth remembering what her “stance” was. She has never written or posted or linked to anything hateful about gay people.
All she did was post a link to the (admittedly audacious and laughable) gofundme page set up by her husband to raise $3 million to fight Rugby Australia’s ban.
To that end, all she is guilty of is, as Tammy Wynette said, standing by her man.
On that same basis, you could denounce the wife of the disgraced Victorian CFMEU chief John Setka for being an accessory to his misogynist conduct, given that she outed herself this week as the woman on the end of his expletiveladen rant, although I haven’t seen anyone on the Left make such a claim against her.
The conduct of these wannabe social justice warriors in corporate Australia has been spectacularly counterproductive. In terms of winning hearts and minds in mainstream Australia, it’s been the dopiest effort since a bunch of LGBTIQ activists decided the best way to advance their cause was to get blokes wearing dresses to read books to two-year-olds in public libraries.
All that the geniuses at the ANZ bank and elsewhere have succeeded in doing is making mountains out of molehills and martyrs out of meatheads.
I know in 2019 business likes to talk about social re
“All she (Maria Folau) is guilty of is, as Tammy Wynette said, standing by her man”
sponsibility as an end in itself but ultimately businesses will never do anything that will harm their brand or product.
By taking such a ham-fisted stance on this issue they have done precisely that.
My guess is that to any reasonable person they risk looking like they have acted in a bullying manner towards Maria Folau.
That is ironic in itself, given that this whole sad and stupid affair is at its core about bullying, namely Folau’s repeated, impertinent and horrible bullying of gay people, albeit motivated by his own ignorant brand of well-meaning proselytising.
If the ANZ had its week over again, particularly its New Zealand arm where this folly started, it should have spent more time looking into how one of its senior executives had used bank funds to underwrite his own lavish home renovations, rather than trying to pump up their pink tick credentials with this posey nonsense.